Audio 3:29
Australian who died in Syria reported to anti-terrorism authorities by friend

Matt WordsworthUpdated
Fri 17 Jan 2014, 1:53 PM AEDT

A family friend of Yusuf Ali, the Australian who died alongside his wife in Syria last weekend, has revealed he was so worried about the young man becoming a Jihadist that he'd reported him to Australia's anti-terrorism authorities. The man, who wishes only to be known by his first name, Michael, says more should have been to stop Mr Ali, whose birth name is Tyler Casey, from travelling to Syria.

Transcript

SCOTT BEVAN: A family friend of Yusuf Ali, the Australian who died alongside his wife in Syria last weekend, has revealed he was so worried about the young man becoming a Jihadist that he'd reported him to Australia's anti-terrorism authorities.

The man, who wishes only to be known by his first name, Michael, says more should have been done to stop Mr Ali, whose birth name is Tyler Casey, from travelling to Syria.

Michael is speaking here with reporter Matt Wordsworth.

MICHAEL: He was quite lovely as a child growing up. He was very caring towards his family. He was one that a lot of the other students and children looked up to. He had good leadership qualities. Yeah, he was just a lovely kid.

MATT WORDSWORTH: When did he become Muslim and why did he decide to?

MICHAEL: I'm not too sure as to why. We've always believed in God, we've always gone to church, so he's had a bit of a spiritual sort of background there growing up.

I'd say the only reason he had become a Muslim initially would have been because that was the group of people that reached out to him when he was down and out.

MATT WORDSWORTH: And that was in Sydney?

MICHAEL: Yep. That was in Sydney, yeah.

MATT WORDSWORTH: So how did he end up going to Syria?

MICHAEL: I'm not too sure exactly, but I do know that the people in the mosque introduced him to people from overseas and it was the people overseas who paid for his trips over there and to train and to learn more of the religion.

MATT WORDSWORTH: And when you say train, what do you mean?

MICHAEL: Well, that's what I was told, train. As far as I knew he was saying that he was training to become a imam, or whatever they...

MATT WORDSWORTH: Oh, so it was religious training?

MICHAEL: ...like, to be a priest sort of thing in their religion. I know that they were all areas that are on the Australian watch list for terrorists, were the areas he was going to for his training. And that was when we contacted the Australian terrorist watch group with the Government and voiced our concerns about him and wanted him to be kept out of that. I was extremely worried at that stage.

MATT WORDSWORTH: And what was it that made you have that fear?

MICHAEL: Last time I spoke to him face to face he was very adamant that he was a warrior for his faith and that was a huge warning bell.

MATT WORDSWORTH: What about the authorities? Do you know what they did after you alerted them?

MICHAEL: I have absolutely no idea. I haven't had any contact from them or any response.

MATT WORDSWORTH: Do you think that more could have been done?

MICHAEL: I'd say definitely more could have been done. Obviously they knew the mosque where he was recruited in Sydney was a mosque that was recruiting young Australians to have them fight and when I voiced my concerns about Tyler they said they'd keep an eye on him.

And to me, his death could have been prevented if the authorities had stepped in and stopped him from travelling. But here we are at the end of the day and it looks like they've done absolutely nothing. He's dead. He's gone. Beautiful young man. Gone.

SCOTT BEVAN: That's family friend Michael, speaking about Yusuf Ali, also known as Tyler Casey, who died in Syria last weekend.